An alpine adventure to snow-capped mountains and glacial lakes

My blog has been a bit quiet lately as I have been away on an internet-free trip to the Canadian Rockies for the last two weeks. There’s not much I find more refreshing than a trip away to the outdoors without internet. To enjoy some peace and quiet and adventure in the mountains.

A lake just outside Golden, BC which lies along the Columbia River in the Southern Rocky Mountain Trench just to the west of the Rocky Mountains.The Rocky Mountain Trench is the longest linear valley in the world.

Where have I been? My partner and I visited the Canadian Rocky Mountains World Heritage Site including Yoho, Kootenay, Banff and Jasper National Parks. The parks all share borders along the British Columbia-Alberta provincial boundary along the backbone of the Canadian Rockies.

Canada’s four national parks of the Rocky Mountains along the BC/Alberta border. (Map: Parks Canada)

We’d been planning on this trip for some time and when the chance came for us to go, we decided to make it happen. After we took my dream trip across the American Southwest a few years ago and experienced Yosemite at the height of mid-summer popularity (riding packed buses full of people is NOT my idea of a wilderness experience), we figured late April was a prime time to go as it is still considered the off season. (This means two things we love: no crowds and lower prices.)

The trade-off is cooler and more unpredictable weather. For two people who hate temperatures above about 25C, that is just fine with us. However, we wound up striking it lucky. Spring came early this year in the Rockies and it was unseasonably warm all April with most ski-fields closing early.

Emerald Lake, Yoho NP, BC still partially iced over in the early spring.

Given my new birding hobby, I was quite excited to see new birds we don’t have on the island. After seeing elk and pikas our first time in the American Rockies, I also knew we could expect to see other amazing wildlife, too.

Pika (left), elk (right) in Rocky Mountain NP, Colorado, US.

Early spring is an excellent time to view wildlife in the mountains and we had some exciting sightings which I will share with you soon.

Until then, enjoy a preview of some of the beautiful alpine scenery we witnessed.